bats of manhood. He was born in Alldowrie in the county of Inverness, October 24th, 1765, and was educated at the school of Fortrulo, and at King's College, Aberdeen, where he formed an intimacy with the Rev. Robert Hall, which terminated only with the death of the former, the year previous to the decease of Sir James. Having been intended for the profession of medicine, he repaired to Edinburgh, and attended the lectures of Dr Cullen and Professor Black. He became one of the annual presidents of the Royal Medical Society, but the bent of his mind towards general literature and rhetoric, now began to display itself, and he applied himself with more diligence to the study of moral, political, and speculative philosophy, under the immediate influence of Robertson, Smith, Clark and Brown, than to those more immediately connected with the medical profession.

In 1787, he took his degree and shortly after he went to England, in company with the eldest son of Sir Charles Grant. His attention, however, was now strongly attracted towards politics, and in 1789 he published a pamphlet defending the whig side of the Regency question. This pamphlet did not meet with much success, and Mr Mackintosh repaired to the continent, and after spending some time at Leyden, he went to Leige, where he was an eye-witness to the conflict between the Bishop and his subjects at the opening of the French revolution. On his return to England he relinquished his medical title, and in 1792, entered himself of Lincoln's Inn, without influential friends, but confident in the strength of his talents. In 1791, he became known to the world by the pro

duction of his Vendicia Galliciæ, in reply to the strictures of Burke upon the French revolution. The talent displayed in this work, introduced him to the leaders of the whig party, and from that time he became a marked man. Although this publication in some measure vindicated the French nation from the eloquent and overpowering invective of Burke, the author himself could not resist the unfavorable impression caused by the sanguinary excesses of the Jacobin leaders, and after an interview with Burke, and a visit to Beacons. bille, he frankly owned to his friends, that he was partially converted to the arguments of his antagonist.

In 1795, he was called to the bar, and unwilling to lose in unprofitable inactivity that leisure usually allowed in the first years of professional life, he announced his intention in 1798, of delivering a course of lectures on the law of nature, and of nations.' Many obstacles were interposed to the execution of this plan, by the violence of party spirit, which was then highly excited, and he was accused of a design to encourage revolutionary principles in England. The publication of the introductory lecture completely refuted this calumny, and not only the leading Whigs, but Mr Pitt himself, spoke of the performance in terms of no measured praise.

The lectures met accordingly with distinguished success, and if Mackintosh had left nothing else, this discourse would have made him eminent with posterity. Mr Mackintosh now began to find employment in his profession, and in 1803, acquired general celebrity by the defence of M. Peltier for a libel against the First Consul of France.

Napoleon, annoyed at the strictures of the press, had caused a complaint through his minister to be made against this person, who conducted a Journal in London, devoted to his opponents.

The English government suffered itself to be so far influenced by this complaint as to institute a prosecution against Peltier for libelling an ally of that country, and Mr Mackintosh was called upon to defend him single handed, against Mr Perceval, who was then Attorney General, and Mr Abbott, afterwards Lord Tenterden. Such an opportunity was never afforded to any advocate to earn distinction at one effort, as was now presented to the young lawyer. The First Consul, after having restored tranquillity and peace to France, was fast advancing to absolute power, by overturning the constitution which he had sworn to support. His jealousy of the press had already succeeded in suppressing political discussion upon the continent, and Mr Mackintosh was well justified in regarding this prosecution, as the first of contests, between the greatest power upon earth, and the only press which was still free.' The bright prospects to human freedom held out at the opening of the French revolution the disappointment of those hopes by the bloodshed and anarchy the military des potism which was then established in France, all afforded topics which were familiar to the advocate, and of which he eloquently availed himself.

cial capacity. His discourse on the law of nations, and his defence of Peltier, had so established his reputation, that the government began to regard him as an individual who might be advantageously employed in the public service.

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In December 1803, he was accordingly appointed Recorder of Bombay, and was knighted on occasion of his promotion. In this station he showed himself a great master in one of the most important of human sciences - criminal jurisprudence. Like a skilful physician, who when appointed to a hospital, would seek to ascertain what complaints he was most frequently called upon to prescribe for, Sir James Mackintosh deavored to find out the prevailing crimes of the community, in which he was to administer justice. Among the native East Indians he discovered to his deep regret, that the besetting sin was perjury, a crime that rendered the administration of justice uncertain, by obscuring the light by which she is to be guided, and which is, as he justly described it, 'an attack on religion, and law, in the very point of their union.'

Against this crime he directed his energies; but his zeal, accompanied as it always was with an enlightened philanthropy, sought to cure the evil, by reforming the public mind, and awakening to its enormity the moral sense which had been stupified and deadened by the political and religious institutions of the country.

One of the most striking instances of equanimity and freedom from all personal considerations ever manifested on the bench, was displayed by him during the trial of two native officers, who were convicted of a conspiracy to rob two travellers from Cochin.

There was no doubt of the culprits having designed to murder the travellers; and expecting to be sentenced to death, they had obtained their knives, and were resolved to sacrifice the judge when sentenced. From the circumstance that the design had been formed under the influence of intoxication, and that there was a strong suspicion that in the temperament of the culprits there was some admixture of insanity, Sir James determined to sentence them to the lightest punishment in his power, and to subject them to supervision after the term of their punishment. At that moment he was informed of their murderous intentions. This, however, did not induce him to alter his judgment, and the next day addressing the criminals he said, 'I was employed in considering the mildest judgment which public duty would allow me to pronounce on you, when I learned from undoubted authority, that your thoughts towards me not of the same nature. If your murderous project had been executed, I should have been the first British magistrate who ever stained with his blood the bench on which he sat to administer justice. But I could never have died better than in the discharge of my duty. When I accepted the of fice of a minister of justice, I knew that I ought to despise unpopularity and slander, and even death itself. Thank God I do despise them, and I solemnly assure you, that I feel more compassion for the gloomy and desperate state of mind which could harbor such projects, than resentment for that part of them which was directed against myself. I should consider myself as indelibly disgraced, if a thought of your pro

were

jects against me were to influence my judgment.'

After an impressive admonition he sentenced them to twelve months' imprisonment. Sir James sat upon the Indian bench until 1811, when his impaired health induced him to return to England, and he retired from his office with a pension of £12,000, from the East India Company.

As soon as his health would permit, he entered the House of Commons as representative from the county of Narina, in July 1813. In 1818, he was elected for Knaresbough, which he continued to represent until his death.

On all questions of foreign policy and international law, on the alien bill, on the liberty of the press, religious toleration, the slave trade, parliamentary reform, the settlement of Greece and the right of the colonies to self-government, Sir James warmly espoused the side of freedom and justice.

As Chairman of the Committee to whom, upon the death of Sir Samuel Romilly, the reform of the criminal law devolved, his labors were of great importance in awakening a full sense of the necessity of meliorating the sanguinary code of England. In 1820, he introduced six bills, pursuant to a report from this committee of the preceding year. Three of these, however, only were carried through, and in the House of Lords seven of the offences which it was intended to commute were expunged, and only four were suffered to remain.

In 1822 and 1823, Sir James Mackintosh was declared Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow; and in 1830, he was appointed one of the commissioners for India.

As a speaker he had great disadvantages to contend against. His harsh voice, provincial accent, uncouth delivery, unceasing vehemence, and refined and speculative mode of reasoning, effectually disabled him from exciting and controling an audience like that of the House of Commons. His speeches, however, told of the country. Full of knowledge and bold and masculine reasoning, he fastened the attention of the public, and a speech which was delivered to an exhausted and inattentive House, has the next day convinced an admiring nation.

As a writer, he was perspicuous, laborious, and fastidious - a clear and vigorous thinker, and his style is pure and classical.

When resident in India he commenced a history of England, which was intended as his chief legacy to posterity, but his ill health and public engagements prevented him from completing it. The volumes which were published in Lardner's Cyclopedia were originally intended as a prefatory synopsis of that portion of English History, preceding the period of which he was to treat in his more amplified history. This he was not permitted to finish, and his chief literary productions consist of those already mentioned, his published speeches, various articles in the Monthly and Edinburgh Reviews, a life of Sir Thomas More and a dissertation of Ethical Science in the Encyclopedia Britannica. The companion of the most distinguished men of his Own times as intimately acquainted with the master spirits of antiquity with a mind replete with ancient lore and modern science equally conversant with philosophy, history, politics and personal narrative: eloquent with

out being pompous: learned without pedantry: gay without affectation, there were few men well fitted for colloquial intercourse; and great as was his loss to the public, it was still more severely and deeply felt by those who knew him in private society.

Sir James Mackintosh was twice married - in 1789 to Miss Stuart, sister to Charles Stuart; and in 1797, to Miss Allen of Pembrokshire.

He had three daughters by his first wife, the two eldest of whom died before him, and two daughters and one son by his second wife.

GEN. THOMAS SUMPTER.

June 1, 1832. At his residence, South-Mount, South-Carolina, Gen. Thomas Sumpter, aged 97.

Gen. Sumpter was a native of Virginia. Early in life he came to South Carolina, and settled in the upper country, which at that time was much harassed by the hostility of the Indians. It would seem that he then commenced his career of valor and usefulness; for we find that at the close of the Cherokee war, he accompanied Oconostotah, or 'the Emperor,' to England; it being common at that time to induce the Indian Chiefs to visit the mother country, for the purpose of confirming their friendship to the colonists. On returning with Oconostotah to his home, in 1763, General, then Mr Sumpter, found, among the Indians, one Baron des Johnes, a French Canadian, who spoke seven of the Indian languages, and whom he suspected of being an incendiary, sent to excite the tribes to hostility against their white neighbors.

Sumpter, with his characteristic resolution, arrested this individual, taking him single handed, in spite of the opposition of the Indians, and, at much personal risk, carrying him prisoner to Fort Prince George, on the Kehowee. Des Johnes was afterwards sent to Charleston, where he was examined, and though his guilt was not positively proved, it was deemed expedient to send him to England.

From Gen. Sumpter's letter to the State Rights Association in February last, we learn that he was in Charleston during the high excitement preceding the war of the Revolution, probably in 1774 and 1775, a time to which the letter reverts with great satisfaction, as the period when he enjoyed, with the old Whig party of Carolina, an interchange of the same sentiments which animate the Nullifiers of the present day.

We next meet with the name of Sumpter in 1780. He had been previously a colonel of one of the continental regiments, and when in that year the British had overrun the State, he would not remain to submit, but retired with other determined patriots into North Carolina. During his absence his house was burned, and his family turned out of doors by the British. The little band of exiles in North Carolina chose him their leader, and at their head he returned to face the victorious enemy. When this gallant incursion was made, the people of the State had for the most part abandoned the idea of resistance, and military operations had been suspended for nearly two months. His followers were in a great measure unfurnished with food, clothing and ammunition. Farming utensils were worked

up by common blacksmiths to supply them with arms. Household pewter was melted into bullets; and they sometimes engaged with not three rounds to a man. With a volunteer force thus equipped, he commenced hostilities, and broke the quiet of subjection into which Carolina seemed to be sinking.

On the 12th July, 1780, he attacked a British detachment on the Catawba, supported by a considerable force of Tories-and totally routed and dispersed the whole force, killing Capt. Hack, who commanded the British, and Col. Ferguson who commanded the Tories. Animated by this success, the inhabitants flocked to his standard; and being reinforced to the number of six hundred men, he made a spirited attack on the British post at Rocky Mount, but was repulsed. Marching immediately in quest of other detachments of the enemy, in eight days after, he attacked the post of the Hanging Rock, where he annihilated the Prince Wales's Regiment, and put to flight a large body of Tories from North Carolina. When Sumpter's men went into this battle, not one of them had more than ten bullets, and towards the close of the fight, the arms and ammunition of the fallen British and Tories were used by the Americans.

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While the American army, under the unfortunate Gates, were approaching Camden, Col. Sumpter was on the west bank of the Wateree, augmenting his forces and indulging the hope of intercepting the British on their way to Charleston, as their retreat or defeat was confidently expected. He here formed a plan for reducing a British redoubt at Wateree